Two things about Sirens

shveta_thakrar is hiring herself out as a copyeditor and proofreader to raise money to go to Sirens this fall; read her post for more details. (You can also just donate directly if you wish.) You all know I think Sirens is a wonderful, wonderful event, and I'm going back this year myself, so if those services sound useful to you, pop on over there and let her know.

Which brings me to the second thing. Just yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that I have so few costuming opportunities these days, compared to when I lived in Bloomington. Then it occurred to me that I have an absolutely smashing opportunity coming up this fall: the masquerade ball at Sirens!

The theme for Sirens this year is "monsters." I could costume as one of those, or as somebody who hunts the same. The sensible thing to do would be to raid my closet and re-use a costume I already have -- but who wants to be sensible? And really, the only monster-type thing I have is my old Hel costume, but I am damned if I'm going to repeat the makeup and hair you see in that icon; it was a bad idea once, and I'm not stupid enough to do it twice. I have a couple of other options, but one isn't exciting and the other doesn't count as "re-using a costume" so much as "re-using an accessory and buying a new costume to go with it."

This is where you, my faithful LJ readers, come in. Who or what should I dress up as? Get as creative as you like; just remember that a) I'm not going to cut or dye my hair and b) whatever I do has to be easily transportable via plane. Suggest as many things as you feel inspired to, and let me know if you think somebody else's suggestions sound good. I promise there will be pictures afterward. (And, er, I'll get around to posting the pics I have from last year. I swear I will.)

Have at it!

In which I pretend to be a statistician

Since there's recently been another round of discussion about gender balance (or imbalance) in SF/F, I thought it might be a nice time to collate a bit of data I've been wondering about for a while.

Generally people tend to perceive a particular group as being gender-balanced when it's about 25% female, and if you get up to 40%, they think it's dominated by women. So it's useful to ask myself: if my instinct is that a short story market -- in this case, Beneath Ceaseless Skies -- publishes a lot of women, am I right?

( Cut to spare you lots and lots of numbers. )

So what's the takeaway from this? Well, to begin with, my perception turned out to be roughly accurate. I wasn't smart enough to write down a guess at what the percentages would be before I did all the counting, so I can't say how close I would have been -- whether I would have pegged it as more than it was, or less. But BCS definitely skews female, though not overwhelmingly.

If that sounds good to you, then read it, support it, talk about it to your friends. You know me; my sweet spot for fantasy is pretty squarely where BCS has positioned itself. As far as I'm concerned, this is just another reason to give them a thumbs-up.